It was just as if he had given her a dizzying blow. This, then, was the beginning of the end. She crossed the room to the bed, and gazed at him aghast.
"Now, Vi!" he admonished her, pulling at his short beard. "Now, Vi!"
There was so much affection, so much loving banter, in his queer tone, that her glance fell before his, as it had not fallen for months. She covered her exposed throat with her cold, damp hands.
"I shall send for the doctor at once," she announced with vivacity, all her body tingling in sudden energy.
"You'll do nothing of the sort," he said. "I've told you I'm all right. But I'll promise you one thing. Next time the medicine-man comes to see you he shall see me as well, if you like.... Now"—he changed his tone to the practical—"you can attend to everything in the shop. Surely it can manage without me for a day or two."
"'A day or two'!" she thought. "Is he taking to his bed permanently? Is that it?"
"And I shall save a clean shirt," he said reflectively.
"But, darling, if you're all right, why must you stay in bed? Please, please, do be open with me. You never are—if you know what I mean." She spoke with a plaintive and eager appeal, as it were girlishly. Her face, with an almost forgotten mobility, showed from moment to moment the varying moods of her emotion; tears hung in her eyes; and she was less than half-dressed. She looked as if she might sob, shriek, and drop in a hysterical paroxysm to the floor.
"Something has to be done about that thief of an Elsie," Henry very calmly explained. "Of course, I could put a lock on the cage, but that might seem stingy, miserly, and I should be sorry if anybody thought we were that. Besides, she's a good sort in some ways. She's got to be frightened; she's got to be impressed. You send her in to me. You can talk to her yourself as much as you like afterwards, but send her in to me first. I'll teach her a lesson."
"How? What are you going to say to her?"